Well done Lieutenant Hargesheimer. :patriot:
You, Sir; are what I consider to be a true hero. The world would be a better place, if more were to follow your selfless example. Being a real American involves more than wearing a lapel pin. Todays "leaders" could learn much from you.
I had tears in my eyes as I read his story.
(Page 4 explains why he wasn't finished off by the Japanese fighter.)
‘Mastah Preddi’ fell from the sky, into hearts"BIALLA, Papua New Guinea - The Japanese fighter caught the American pilot from behind, riddling his plane with machine-gun rounds. The left engine burst into flames. It was time to bail out.
He yanked on the release lever but the cockpit canopy only half-opened. He unbuckled his seat belt, rose to shake the canopy loose and was instantly sucked out.
Swinging beneath his opened parachute, he plunged toward a Pacific island jungle of thick, towering eucalyptus trees, of crocodile rivers and headhunters, into enemy territory, and into an unimagined future as a hero, "Suara Auru," Chief Warrior, to generations of islanders yet unborn.
<snip>
The light blue eyes, at age 91, can't see as well as they once did. But when he looks back over 65 years, the smiling Minnesotan sees it all clearly — the struggle to survive, the native rescuers, the Japanese patrols and narrow escapes, the mother's milk that saved him. He remembers well his return to New Britain, the people's embrace, the fundraising and building, the children taught, the adults cured, the happy years beside the Bismarck Sea with Dorothy, his wife..."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23538741/page/4/ 
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